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Let us now return to Pelasgus, who, Acusilaus says, was a son of Zeus and Niobe, as we
have supposed,1 but Hesiod declares him to have been a son of the soil. He had a
son Lycaon2 by
Meliboea, daughter of Ocean or, as others say, by a
nymph Cyllene; and Lycaon, reigning over the Arcadians, begat by many wives fifty sons, to
wit: Melaeneus, Thesprotus, Helix, Nyctimus, Peucetius, Caucon, Mecisteus, Hopleus,
Macareus, Macednus, Horus, Polichus, Acontes, Evaemon, Ancyor, Archebates, Carteron,
Aegaeon, Pallas, Eumon, Canethus, Prothous, Linus, Coretho, Maenalus, Teleboas, Physius,
Phassus, Phthius, Lycius, Halipherus, Genetor, Bucolion, Socleus, Phineus, Eumetes,
Harpaleus, Portheus, Plato, Haemo, Cynaethus, Leo, Harpalycus, Heraeeus, Titanas,
Mantineus, Clitor, Stymphalus, Orchomenus, ...
These exceeded all men in pride and impiety; and Zeus, desirous of putting
their impiety to the proof, came to them in the likeness of a day-laborer. They offered
him hospitality and having slaughtered a male child of the natives, they mixed his bowels
with the sacrifices, and set them before him, at the instigation of the elder brother
Maenalus.3 But Zeus in
disgust upset the table at the place which is still called Trapezus,4 and blasted Lycaon and his sons by
thunderbolts, all but Nyctimus, the youngest; for Earth was quick enough to
lay hold of the right hand of Zeus and so appease his wrath.

2 The following passage about Lycaon and his sons,
down to and including the notice of Deucalion's flood, is copied, to a great extent
verbally, by Tzetzes （Scholiast on Lycophron 481）, who
mentions Apollodorus by name as his authority. For another and different list of
Lycaon's sons, see Paus. 8.3.1ff., who calls Nyctimus the
eldest son of Lycaon, whereas Apollodorus calls him the youngest （see
below）. That the wife of Pelasgus and mother of Lycaon was Cyllene is affirmed
by the Scholiast on Eur. Or. 1645.

3 With this and what follows compare
Nicolaus Damascenus, Frag. 43 （Fragmenta Historicorum Graecorum, ed. C.
Müller, iii.378; Suidas, s.v. Λυκάων）: “Lycaon, son of Pelasgus and king of
Arcadia, maintained his father's institutions
in righteousness. And wishing like his father to wean his subjects from unrighteousness
he said that Zeus constantly visited him in the likeness of a stranger to view the
righteous and the unrighteous. And once, as he himself said, being about to receive the
god, he offered a sacrifice. But of his fifty sons, whom he had, as they say, by many
women, there were some present at the sacrifice, and wishing to know if they were about
to give hospitality to a real god, they sacrificed a child and mixed his flesh with that
of the victim, in the belief that their deed would be discovered if the visitor was a
god indeed. But they say that the deity caused great storms to burst and lightnings to
flash, and that all the murderers of the child perished.” A similar version of
the story is reported by Hyginus, Fab. 176, who adds that Zeus in his wrath
upset the table, killed the sons of Lycaon with a thunderbolt, and turned Lycaon himself
into a wolf. According to this version of the legend, which Apollodorus apparently
accepted, Lycaon was a righteous king, who ruled wisely like his father Pelasgus before
him （see Paus. 8.1.4-6）, but his virtuous
efforts to benefit his subjects were frustrated by the wickedness and impiety of his
sons, who by exciting the divine anger drew down destruction on themselves and on their
virtuous parent, and even imperilled the existence of mankind in the great flood. But
according to another, and perhaps more generally received, tradition, it was King Lycaon
himself who tempted his divine guest by killing and dishing up to him at table a human
being; and, according to some, the victim was no other than the king's own son Nyctimus.
See Clement of Alexandria, Protrept.
ii.36, p. 31, ed. Potter; Nonnus, Dionys. xviii.20ff.;
Arnobius, Adversus Nationes iv.24. Some, however, said that the victim
was not the king's son, but his grandson Arcas, the son of his daughter Callisto by
Zeus. See Eratosthenes, Cat. 8; Hyginus, Ast. ii.4;
Scholia in Caesaris Germanici Aratea, p. 387 （in Martianus Capella, ed.
Fr. Eyssenhardt）. According to Ov. Met.
1.218ff., the victim was a Molossian hostage. Others said simply that Lycaon
set human flesh before the deity. See Lactantius Placidus on Statius, Theb.
xi.128; Scriptores rerum mythicarum Latini, ed. Bode, i.5 (First Vatican
Mythographer 17). For this crime Zeus changed the wicked king into a wolf,
according to Hyginus, Ovid, the Scholiast on Caesar Germanicus, and the First Vatican
Mythographer; but, on the other hand, Clement of Alexandria, Nonnus, Eratosthenes, and
Arnobius say nothing of such a transformation. The upsetting of the table by the
indignant deity is recorded by Eratosthenes, Cat. 8 as well as by
Hyginus, Ast. ii.4 and Apollodorus. A somewhat different account of the
tragical occurrence is given by Pausanias, who says （Paus. 8.2.3） that Lycaon brought a human babe to the altar of Lycaean
Zeus, after which he was immediately turned into a wolf. These traditions were told to
explain the savage and cruel rites which appear to have been performed in honour of
Lycaean Zeus on Mount Lycaeus down to the second century of our era or later. It seems
that a human victim was sacrificed, and that his inward parts （σπλάγχνον）, mixed with that of animal victims, was
partaken of at a sort of cannibal banquet by the worshippers, of whom he who chanced to
taste of the human flesh was believed to be changed into a wolf and to continue in that
shape for eight years, but to recover his human form in the ninth year, if in the
meantime he had abstained from eating human flesh. See Plat.
Rep. 8.565d-e; Paus. 8.2.6. According to another
account, reported by Varro on the authority of a Greek writer Euanthes, the werewolf was
chosen by lot, hung his clothes on an oak tree, swam across a pool, and was then
transformed into a wolf and herded with wolves for nine years, afterwards recovering his
human shape if in the interval he had not tasted the flesh of man. In this account there
is no mention of cannibalism. See Pliny, Nat. Hist. viii.81;
Augustine, De civitate Dei xviii.17. A certain Arcadian boxer, named
Damarchus, son of Dinnytas, who won a victory at Olympia, is said to have been thus transformed into a wolf at the
sacrifice of Lycaean Zeus and to have been changed back into a man in the tenth year
afterwards. Of the historical reality of the boxer there can be no reasonable doubt, for
his statue existed in the sacred precinct at Olympia, where it was seen by Pausanias; but in the inscription on it,
which Pausanias copied, there was no mention made of the man's transformation into a
wolf. See Paus. 6.8.2. However, the transformation was
recorded by a Greek writer, Scopas, in his history of Olympic victors, who called the
boxer Demaenatus, and said that his change of shape was caused by his partaking of the
inward parts of a boy slain in the Arcadian sacrifice to Lycaean Zeus. Scopas also spoke
of the restoration of the boxer to the human form in the tenth year, and mentioned that
his victory in boxing at Olympia was
subsequent to his experiences as a wolf. See Pliny, Nat. Hist. viii.82;
Augustine, De civitate Dei xviii.17. The continuance of human sacrifice
in the rites of Lycaean Zeus on Mount Lycaeus is hinted at by Paus. 8.38.7 in the second century of our era, and asserted by Porphyry,
（De abstinentia ii.27: Eusebius, Praeparatio Evangelii,
iv.16.6） in the third century. From these fragmentary notices it is
hardly possible to piece together a connected account of the rite; but the mention of
the transformation of the cannibal into a wolf for eight or nine years suggests that the
awful sacrifice was offered at intervals either of eight or of nine years. If the
interval was eight years, it would point to the use of that eight years' cycle which
played so important a part in the ancient calendar of the Greeks, and by which there is
reason to think that the tenure of the kingship was in some places regulated. Perhaps
the man who was supposed to be turned into a wolf acted as the priest, or even as the
incarnation, of the Wolf God for eight or nine years till he was relieved of his office
at the next celebration of the rites. The subject has been learnedly discussed by
A. B. Cook (Zeus, i.63-99);. He regards Lycaean Zeus as a
god of light rather than of wolves, and for this view there is much to be said. See
Frazer on Paus. 8.38.7 （vol. iv. pp. 385ff.）. The view would be
confirmed if we were sure that the solemn sacrifice was octennial, for the octennial
period was introduced in order to reconcile solar and lunar time, and hence the
religious rites connected with it would naturally have reference to the great celestial
luminaries. As to the octennial period, see the note on Apollod. 2.5.11. But with this view of the festival it is difficult to
reconcile the part played by wolves in the myth and ritual. We can hardly suppose with
some late Greek writers, that the ancient Greek word for a year, λυκάβας, was derived from λύκος,
“a wolf,” and βαίνω, “to
walk.” See Ael., Nat. Anim. x.26; Artemidorus, Onirocrit.
ii.12; Eustathius on Hom. Od. xiv.161, p. 1756.

Apollodorus. Apollodorus, The Library, with an English Translation by Sir James George Frazer, F.B.A., F.R.S. in 2 Volumes. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1921. Includes Frazer's notes.

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